Hello everyone.

My name is Benjamin and I am a vegan, animal & plant loving musician and organic gardening enthusiast who has recently (in the last 2 years) become interested in psychedelics. My first ever psychedelic experience was in fact with DMT. What an induction!

My sister and I had heard about it and decided we wanted to do it.

I was in a beautiful garden on a summer night with three friends, two of whom were experienced trippers, none of whom were the judgemental type, so I was feeling as comfortable as one can in that excited and very nervous state prior to trying a powerful psychedelic for the first time. A cone was packed with DMT sandwiched between marijuana. I took a few deep breathes and tentatively held the lighter up to the cone piece. I maybe made it two thirds of the way through inhaling the contents of the bong before I felt an incredible lifting sensation as a cocoon woven of golden silk enveloped me accompanied by a vibration not dissimilar to a hum. The sky started dancing the plants looked like iridescent lego equivalents of themselves and I laughed out loud in a state of pure joy. I'd seen nothing more shockingly beautiful in my adult life.

I don't believe it was a 'breakthrough' experience, but it certainly piqued my interest. I've had DMT once since then, but with a lesser quality product. I did some superficial research and planted a few acacia floribunda in my yard based on the thinking that the worst outcome would be that I'd have some nice bird attracting, nitrogen fixing natives in the garden. A year has passed and they are 2m tall!

I'm hoping to understand a little more about what is involved in an extraction so I can decide where to go from here.

Thanks for reading! Look forward to learning and sharing with you all

Welcome to the nexus.
Make sure you read the Attitude because talking about sourcing drugs here is forbidden so make sure you edit your post!

Extracting DMT is the way to go. You will be amazed at what purity you can get from simple kitchem chemistry.

Thanks for the welcome!

I do apologise. I've edited my post and I had read the attitude section though thought I was vague enough. I'll be more careful in future

Hey dbent!

So glad to have you on here, really hope you enjoy it here!

So you started off with DMT, that's very interesting! Glad you had a good experience though. Definitely look into extraction, there's moar than enough information about that on this site.

Nice to hear that you're growing your own plants! That's the way to go, IMO. And they've already grown 2 metres! That's amazing! I don't know if the phyllodes on that particular species are active, you'll have to look into that.

A few questions for you dbent:

What first piqued your interest in psychedelics? What led you down this path?

What is your view on spirituality, "God" etc?

Do you have a spiritual practice? If so, what is it?

You said you're a vegan, I'm curious about that. What made you make that decision?

You don't have to answer all of these in one post, in case you want to go into detail.

Welcome, my friend!

Hey JustAnotherHuman!

Thanks for the welcome I think the floribunda is reported by some to have active phyllodes, but I guess it's hard to know for sure until I try myself. There are so many variables - maturity, season, soil. Anyway I have an optimistic outlook, so I'm just looking forward to having a go.

I guess I first became interested in psychedelics because firstly, I had tried many other substances but never had really hallucinated beyond seeing the odd shadow after being awake for too long or seeing patterns when I closed my eyes after smoking weed and secondly because my sister had told me some fantastic tails of her experiences. She described one particular experience as 'the best day of her life'. I was curious, to say the least.

Initially I treated psychedelics as I did other recreational substances - I did them for fun. But I've realised things about myself which have changed my life since doing them and I now regard them not only as a fun thing to do but also as a tool for self discovery, and getting a different perspective on our existence.

My current view on god is this: I believe that there are things that I will never understand in my life on Earth and one of them is 'God'. I grew up with a christian father and went to church on Sundays, but never really connected with Christianity. I believe there is every possibility that there is a higher power/being but I don't pretend to have any knowledge of it. Some may argue that life can't have purpose or spirituality without this kind of knowledge, but I think our purpose is innate and our spirituality is found by connecting ourselves with our existence whether that be with people, nature, animals etc. and being grateful for them. This is my spiritual practice, if it can be called that, and it brings me to your next question about veganism.

I have always connected with animals strongly, whether they be pets or just animals I've come across for whatever reason. They are sentient beings and I can empathize with them. As a human I can live a healthy life on a plant based diet and as such I decide not to cause the death of a fellow being for something that I see as being unnecessary. I feel it is the right thing to do for me and I feel more at peace with the world and myself for doing so. I made the decision about 2 years ago when I found myself spending time with people who were thinking in this way. I had a leaning in this direction before I became vegan and I think their influence was the final push I needed.

I see you have had some experience with lucid dreaming. It's something I've recently heard about and am interested in. How did you first get started?

Cheers,
Ben

Ben,

Thanks for your beatiful words. I also don't eat meat and think there may be a higher being/conciousness that us humans don't truly understand yet.

I'm trying to grow Acacia Acuminata. The narrow leaf variety has been measured at 1.5% DMT in it's "leaves". I've had horrible sprouting rates, glad to see that it is working for you.

I like what you said about spirituality and purpose dbent, I share the same views. I think life is a mystery, one that we monkeys may never solve. And maybe we don't need to. I also think you don't need a belief system to have a purpose in life. Purpose is what you make it, is what I think.

As for lucid dreaming, I got interested in it a while back. I don't use any special technique or anything, it just happens when it happens. I should take it moar seriously. If you wanna get into it dbent, there's plenty of info online and YouTube videos about it. Lucid dreaming is very cool. I would definitely recommend.

Your discussion on god and existential mysteries reminded me of a quote from Terrence McKenna:

"Nowhere is it writ in adamantine that troops of monkeys are meant to understand the mysteries of the cosmos."

Quote may be a few words off, but that's the gist of it.

That's where I got it from!

For your first psychedelic experience, that's pretty heavy, but I am so glad that it was a beneficial one for you and has piqued your curiosity of other forms of reality, if you will. I look forward to seeing more from you and hearing more about your sustainable projects. Sounds like with growing your own plants you're already in the right direction. One love.